Kuzeja Home Page - What's Up With That? (December 9, 1999)

I just got home from Christmas shopping and I tell you, what an incredible experience. I don't mind the crowds and all that stuff. In fact I enjoy them. I am a people person, you know? I enjoy watching different people and all their interesting quirks. If there's one thing I'm known for, it's my extreme interest in a "quirky"... that is to say, quirky person, of course.

Anyway, when it comes to crowds at the mall, I take it all in stride. I park as far away from the front door as possible anyway. I don't need to pay for a gym when I do smart things like park far away from the store so that I can get a good, brisk walk in with every shopping trip. Hey, it's all part of working and living smarter, not harder. Got that? SMARTER NOT HARDER DAMN IT! That's the slogan for the year 2000. When someone asks you how you're doing say something like "Damn it, I'm living smarter not harder." No one will understand you but they'll be too afraid to ask you for clarification because lots of people seem to be more preoccupied with what others think of them than living a meaningful life so they'll be more interested in saving face than understanding you.

Oh yeah... I park way the hell out there in the parking lot anyway. Now all these big ass Sport Utility Vehicle owners have to park their big ass SUVs as close as possible to the mall entrances. This seems counter-intuitive to me. A friend of mine who is 10,000 times more obsessed than I am with SUV proliferation... got that?... 10,000 times MORE obsessed than I, points out that the individuals who own these big ass rugged SUVs should be the type of people who are rugged and outdoorsy and like to take long, brisk walks from the outskirts of the parking lot to the entrance of their favorite mall. But no. These big ass SUV owners park close. And they keep orbiting the stupid mall over and over again until they find that spot less than ten spaces from the door. All that big ass SUV pollution just floating around the mall. No wonder those wacky kids at the mall who hang out right by the entrances never seem to have anything intelligent to say. They are totally doped up and whacked out on SUV pollution. Them kids loves the SUV smoke.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so I'm parked out in East Bumf*ck with all the Greenpeace and Sierra Club members and I'm hauling ass into the mall carefully scanning the parking lot for big ass SUVs driven by digital cell phone babbling yuppies who aren't looking at all the tiny cars and people and trees and curbs and things like that in the parking lot. I may have to do the occasional shoulder roll out of the path of a gigantic Ford Excursion or Chevy Suburban but damn it, that just adds to my exercise. Hey, I am buff! I am a mall walking, SUV dodging, shoulder rolling, pumped up buff individual! Check out my ass. CHECK IT OUT DAMN IT! Having just successfully dodged an enormous rolling vehicle with its own gravitational pull (and a couple of Mazda Miatas and VW bugs helplessly stuck in orbit around it), I really enjoy glancing up from the pavement in time to read one of those wacky SUV bumper stickers that you seem to always see...

If you can read this, it's only because I haven't backed over your car and crushed the ever loving life out of you yet... but please be patient. Any second now my 500-watt reverse lamps will be coming on as I fire up my third world country sized power plant and shift this puppy into reverse beginning yet another commute of terror.

That's one big ass bumper sticker on one big ass bumper of one big ass SUV. Okay, so I've finally reached the mall entrance and I've worked up a freaking sweat from my stupid brisk walk. I'm carrying about 40 recyclable Greenpeace and Sierra Club pamphlets and I haven't even begun shopping yet. Cripes!

At this point, I do what any sane man would do... make a beeline for Victoria's Secret. Mind you, I never intend to actually buy anything; my response when asked "Can I help you?" by a lusty busty sales clerk is always a polite and very accurate "Oh, I'm just looking." I know what you're thinking. "Tom, you should correct her grammar by pointing out to her that she should be asking you 'MAY I help you?'" Believe me, she CAN and she MAY. ^{Author's
Disclaimer.}

Anyway, here's a tip for you bored fellows out there. Bring a magnetic device that sets off the entrance way alarms at Victoria's Secret. Walk out of the doorway and then make this fuss when everyone looks at you. I personally always insist on a strip search so that I can clear my good name before I leave the store. But make sure that Vinnie the stockboy is out of the store on his lunch break if you want to pull this one off with the desired end result.

After about two hours of a meticulous body check, I usually head out of VS and start my shopping. By this time, most of the big ass SUV driving beautiful people have left the mall. So me and the Greenpeace folks pretty much have free reign of the place. And while they all head off to The Natural Wonders store or some other earthy crunchy place, I'm off to all the other stores.

Here's another fun thing to do. Grab a ketchup pack from Burger King in the food court. Head over to the Bell Atlantic Mobile store and keep asking annoying questions about digital cell phones and rumors of heads exploding upon usage. Refuse to even look at a phone until you've asked at least ten times for reassurances from the clerk that they aren't dangerous. Then as soon as you put one of those babies up to your ear, explode the ketchup pack on your head, scream loudly and fall to the floor in wild convulsions. Every now and then scream out "Johnny Cochran" or some other famous lawyer's name. This is always fun to do. One tip: make sure that the cell phone you put up to your ear is a real one and not a plastic mock up or else you'll end up looking mighty silly, my friend!

On a side note, have you ever questioned the safety of any wireless phone? Of course the manufacturers tell you they are safe (I hear they plan on coming out with a new asbestos cellular phone with uranium antenna next year), but hang out with some of the cellular phone development engineers sometime. Everything those guys own is wired and when I say "Everything", I'm really only doing that to demonstrate that I've figured out how to put italic text into my article this week.

See, holiday shopping can be mighty fun. I'd write a little more but between the chaffing from the Victoria's Secret strip search and the inhalation of all that big ass SUV smog on my brisk walk back out to my car in East Bumf*ck, I'm a little beat. Besides, there's some dried up ketchup I gotta wash out of my hair.

What's Up With That?

I put the "FU" in Holiday Shopping Fun!

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